


An Old Solution

by Velvedere



Category: Loki: Agent of Asgard, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Aftercare, BDSM, Caning, Collars, Comics AU, Emotional release, Light Bondage, M/M, Power Play, overly pedantic examination of s&m
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 00:53:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7992607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvedere/pseuds/Velvedere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seeking to reconnect with his emotionally distant brother, Thor follows Natasha's advice on how to break down some interpersonal walls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Old Solution

Thor stood just outside the entryway of the main room, on the verge of losing his resolve.

It seemed symbolic, he thought: that he should hesitate here. Now. Where one more step would take him into plain view of the one he sought, and this plan of his would be set in motion with no chance of retreat.

Perhaps that was an unnecessarily dramatic way to think of it.

There was always a way back, he believed. Always another path to consider. If he went forward now and deemed the timing unwise, he was certain he could come up with some excuse or alternate plan. It would not be difficult. Nor would it surprise Loki to see Thor fumbling for words should he be unable to appear less than sure of himself. (This was not truly a thing that happened often. Thor was as confident and well-spoken as any royal. But sometimes he perpetuated the stereotype that he was less than intelligent when it suited his purposes. The Lady Natasha called it “messing with people.”)

Thor stood, hesitating on the cusp of action, as he peeked around the frame of the entryway. He imagined he must have made a fine sight: Thor, warrior of Asgard and feared Avenger, hesitant to do anything. But on matters where Loki was concerned he was often of mixed feelings, and though he had been turning such thoughts as he had now over and over in his mind for some time, the application of them required much more strength of will. A reaffirming of his commitment.

“For what it’s worth,” he could recall Natasha saying, tilting her eyes up to him through the fall of her hair. Her mouth quirked at the corner in the barest hint of a smile, as she was wont to do. “I think it would be good for both of you.”

They had discussed it at length. Leafed through her many books. She was able to explain things to him in such a way as they were simple and followed a clear path of logic, but also rang with a resonant depth of truth. In a way, Thor felt very childish and naïve, that he had never drawn such conclusions before on his own.

It was not as though such things were unheard of in Asgard…

“How can I be certain this is what he wants?” He asked her in the dim light of evening, slumped forward with his beard in one hand. They read by the light of a few small lamps, gleaming off the interior of the suite in Avengers’ Tower, all of it sharp and shiny angles.

“Well.” Natasha tipped her head again. She sat on the tabletop beside the open book, letting Thor make his way through it at his own pace, offering advice and pointers where she saw the opportunity. “You could ask him.”

Thor pressed his lips together tightly. He felt heat rise in his cheeks, and could think of no way of phrasing an inquiry that wouldn’t end in Loki laughing at him.

Natasha’s smile remained small. Aware and sympathetic.

“But, in this case, it could be a less of a case of ‘want’ and more a case of ‘need.’”

“You truly think so?” Thor looked up, daring to hope.

She nodded.

“Some people aren’t always aware of what they need. They may know what they want, but it may not be the same thing.”

“I just want him to be happy…”

“Then you’re approaching this from the right angle.” She smiled, and patted his shoulder.

Thor took a deep breath.

He held it as he watched Loki dance around the kitchenette.

Loki remained either unaware or uncaring of his presence. A set of headphones covered his ears, and he alternately sang or hummed to himself as he devoted his attention to a series of pots and pans arranged across the stovetop, referring only occasionally to a book of cooking directions floating in the air nearby.

Loki in this form was a capable chef. Thor couldn’t recall his brother ever being particularly interested in mealcraft in any time past, but once he’d likened it to magic Thor could understand his fascination. The smells wafting through the room were delightful, and for what was probably the fifty-sixth time Thor considered putting off this plan for a later date. (Loki’s cooking skills were – Thor believed – the sole and primary reason the Avengers tolerated his presence in the Tower at all. He had certainly not endeared himself to them otherwise.)

Thor shook his head, reminding himself to focus.

“…get a little bit Genghis Khan…don’t want you to get it on with nobody else but me…nobody else but meeee-eee-ee…”

Loki stirred and flipped the contents of one pan, catching it deftly back into its sizzling hold. The look in his eyes was one of excited delight: the simple joy of craft. Thor felt glad in his heart to see such a look on him. It did not seem often that he saw that look.

Thor let out his breath in one long, thorough exhale. Then he closed one hand into a fist at his side, and stepped into view.

Loki didn’t start to see him. He only smiled, lifting his head, pulling the headphones from his ears to settle around his neck. Music still blared from the internal speakers loud enough for Thor to hear over the sound of cooking food.

“Just in time for dinner, brother. As always.” Loki grinned, pouring out the pan’s steaming contents onto a plate. Thor could not hide how he eyed the meal, or how his stomach suddenly rumbled.

“An achievement, Loki.” He nodded his head. “As always. What is it this time?”

“A peace offering,” Loki said without breaking stride. He tossed the leftover product of foodstuffs into a trash bin, and took a large bite out of one of the peaches he had been using for ingredients. “It seems Stark is still sore about my setting off those rockets in his closet.”

“It was a rather unwarranted thing to do,” Thor muttered.

Loki tossed his hands.

“I warned him about storing them there! He didn’t believe me. The only recourse was to show him how dangerous it was!”

Thor laughed to himself and shook his head. It was business about the Tower as usual. He watched his brother with an open and swelling affection as Loki speared a bit of the foodstuff onto a fork, then turned to hold it up to Thor’s level.

“Taste test?”

Thor was only too eager to volunteer, and closed his eyes with a savoring groan as flavor invaded his mouth upon the first bite. He held the sample on his tongue far longer than was necessary, simply to enjoy it.

“Masterful,” he said, at last swallowing and looking back towards Loki eagerly for more.

Loki nodded, gesturing with the fork.

“Of course it is. Help yourself. There’s plenty to go around. Now, the big question: to laxative Stark or no?”

Thor slid into a seat at the kitchenette’s island and helped himself to a portion of the meal as Loki turned back to the rest of the items on the stove. Loki returned to his routine: humming snatches of song, talking about something or other that was – in truth – of little consequence, Thor only half-listening with an occasional acknowledging grunt around a mouthful of food. He worked his way steadily through a plate – and then another – and watched Loki work: quick and competent in everything he did, with an easy confidence and relaxed manner.

And yet…

It had been like this for some time. For as long as Thor could recall Loki being in this form, really. ( _This form…_ Thor cringed inside with internal reproach for thinking of Loki and all his incarnations so casually. They were all Loki.) Loki: young again, his magic reclaimed, with boasts of adopting a new, more righteous path and – for the most part – sticking to it. Even if he did look dreadful in white.

Thor was happy. He was happy for him. Even if the tumultuous revelations of what happened to his previous child self were still a tender subject for them both – one which they silently seemed to agree never to discuss again – Thor took comfort in the knowledge that Loki was always changing. Ever shifting. There would likely be another incarnation after this. And another. And another.

But he was still Loki. That fact never changed.

And the child whom he so loved and wed and mourned Thor did not think was so far gone as Loki seemed to believe.

“…and I was in that deli – you know, the one on the corner? that one – and couldn’t help but notice how that fat bulldog of a man behind the counter weighed his thumb along with the meat every time he put it on the scale. Dreadful, really, robbing those elderly ladies of their well-earned roast beef. So I removed the problem.”

Thor winced.

“What did you do?”

“Oh, Thor, don’t look at me like that! I didn’t hurt the contemptable canine. Just replaced his thumbs with lizards. It should wear off in about a week…”

It was like this: openness. Banter. Speaking to each other with an easiness they’d never had before. But there was something still missing. Something Thor noticed from the start, but which had taken him some time to name.

“Emotional intimacy,” Natasha had said, right from the start. “He has walls up all around.”

Thor stared at her with a slack-jawed wonder, to which Natasha only shrugged and folded her arms.

“It’s pretty standard psychology. You two are friends again after a lot of bad stuff went down. You talk. You play. It feels like everything should be normal. But even when you’re alone together, you feel like Loki isn’t truly being himself. There’s still a level of bravado you feel like you can’t get through.”

“What…?” Thor tried, though the words choked in his throat. Caught between intense shame that Natasha could define so easily what he could not, and overwhelming relief that someone else understood. “How do you know…?”

That smile of hers again. Small. Knowing.

“It’s my job to read people. You guys may be gods, but you’re still people.”

Thor put his face in his hands, leaning forward onto the table.

“He doesn’t get upset,” he mumbled through his fingers, groaning agony. “I should be glad of it, but…that is when I first realized something was wrong. I even went out of my way as a test to see if I could offend him, and he only laughed. Made jokes. Dismissed it. I should be relieved, but…”

“But that isn’t like him,” Natasha finished.

“No! Not for one who feels as deeply as Loki does. He always has. But now, it is as if…”

“As if nothing’s really getting through. He doesn’t get upset about things, which means he isn’t really feeling them. Which makes you afraid he isn’t feeling anything else, either.”

Thor stared at her. Natasha put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“It’s okay. I think I might have a solution.”

Thor lowered his eyes now, remembering that conversation. It had been months ago, but it began the journey that had led him to where he was now: sitting there, watching Loki work, internally wrestling with when would be the best moment to act. He propped his chin in one hand against the countertop over his newly emptied plate – it was delicious, whatever it was Loki had made – while his other hand lingered down near the pocket of his trousers. Rubbing the material between his fingers of something tucked within.

“…hope he likes citrus.” Loki was still going on. One snap of his fingers, and he laid a spell over the steaming meal that would keep it fresh until it was delivered to Stark. Most likely, Loki would not do it himself. The book hovering in the air neatly folded itself closed and came to rest on the counter. “There. All done.”

The kitchen remained impeccably clean. Loki was nothing if not tidy: an easier feat to accomplish when one could enspell dishes into washing themselves. Loki wiped his hands on a rag and tossed it over the oven’s handle before circling around the kitchenette island to slide into a chair beside Thor, a sly grin aimed his way.

“I do feel accomplished. Now what shall we do with ourselves?” He took another bite of peach, licking juice from the edge of his mouth and eying Thor’s empty plate. “What did you think?”

“Magnificent,” Thor murmured, his eyes downcast. He lifted them with a will of effort to glance aside and meet Loki’s with a look of intent, mustering as much confidence into his voice as he could while still keeping it a low rumble. “But now I hunger for something else.”

Loki arched one delicately dark eyebrow.

He watched Thor a moment, considerately chewing his peach, before he snorted a laugh and had to turn away.

“I do so love your attempts at foreplay, brother.” Another bite, and he tossed the remnants of the peach into the trash bin. “And what, pray tell, are you hungry for now?”

“You.”

Thor reached his hand forward, catching Loki’s cheek just as he returned to face him again. He spread his fingers to hold as much of his brother’s nape and jawline as he could, fingers denting into his skin, touching a press of their mouths to capture him fully. He felt and heard Loki’s hum as he luxuriously closed his eyes, amenable enough to the kiss, leaning in against him and parting his lips to invite Thor’s tongue.

He tasted of peach juice.

“I believe that’s on the menu tonight,” Loki smirked, their brows lingering in contact even as the kiss parted, eyes half sliding open to lazily enjoy him. Noses bumping. “In fact, it’s the special.”

“I did have something special in mind,” said Thor.

“Oh?” Loki’s mouth curled in delight. “And what would that be?”

Thor pulled him into a kiss again, hand pressing harder over the back of his neck to hold Loki firm, only a little crushing, earning from him a deep grunt.

Loki liked having the back of his neck held.

Then he drew his hand from the pocket of his trousers, trailing a black slip of supple leather in his hold. While he held Loki firm and distracted with the kiss, he slipped it up and over the back of his neck, clicking it into place a split second before Loki noticed.

His eyes shot wide, and Loki vanished. Sudden and complete. He reappeared a short distance away across the room, hooking two fingers into the collar to pull at it.

“What in Hel’s garden is this?!”

Thor turned calmly in his chair to face him, keeping his expression a level mask.

“A collar,” he said simply.

Loki calmed too, as several heartbeats passed and he realized the collar had no magic-inhibiting abilities. It was only a collar. Plain with a single metal ring. As one might put on a dog for tags.

Loki still raised a highly dubious eyebrow as he pushed one finger against the inside lining to pull it away from his neck. There was just enough room to do so.

“And why did you feel the need to put a collar on me?”

Thor sat, his hands placed firmly on his knees. He pressed his palms flat. The better to keep them steady.

His heart sprinted in his chest. His mouth felt dry. But he swallowed, and continued on in a level voice.

“Do you like it?”

“…what?”

“Do you like it?”

Loki looked at Thor as though he had suddenly grown a second head. But Thor did not let himself feel dissuaded. His resolve wavered and the need tugged at him to apologize. To make excuses. To abandon the whole thing entirely. But still he stood from his chair, and crossed the floor slowly to approach where Loki stood. Purpose filled his every stride.

Because Natasha had been right. It had gotten a reaction.

Thor had groaned, dropping himself forward over Natasha’s open books with his face in his hands.

“Loki will never agree to such a thing,” he mourned. “His pride will not allow it…”

“So you take the initiative,” she said easily. “Use a little force. You’re pretty good at that.”

“In battle,” Thor grumbled miserably.

“If he really doesn’t go for it, I don’t think Loki will have a problem letting you know. Besides...” She tapped the open page of the book. One of the illustrations Thor had paused upon. “Have you ever done something for Loki before because you knew it was best for him, even if you thought he wouldn’t approve?”

That, Thor couldn’t rightly argue against.

Thor stood over Loki now, casting him in his shadow. Loki’s eyes looked up with a confused indignation, dark except for where they caught the slanted light from the kitchen’s interior. His hand remained gripping the collar as though he might pull it off, though he had yet to do so.

“I said,” Thor repeated. “Do you like it?”

“Thor.” Loki spoke with a sigh, as one grasping for patience with a small child. “What are you doing—?”

Barely had he managed the last word when Thor took his chin in one hand, tipping up his face for another kiss. It was firm and forceful, and Loki made a muted squeak against his mouth as he tried to pull away. Thor caught one hand around his waist and pulled him back in, hard up against him.

He rumbled into his skin, barely moving his face away when he spoke.

“Because I quite like the way it looks on you.”

Loki’s eyes flashed wide. Both hands planted on Thor’s chest. He tried to push back, pull away, but Thor held on, marching him back the few steps it took to plant Loki’s back against the wall. He pushed him harder than was necessary – hard enough to make the chandelier overhead rattle in its fixture – and held him there even as he struggled, one hand clamped on his upper arm and the weight of his body doing the rest.

“Thor—!” Loki tried. Thor clapped one hand over his mouth, meeting his eyes at an uncomfortable closeness so there could be no mistaking his meaning.

“You will not speak,” rumbled Thor, in the deeper voice of distant thunders he usually reserved for delivering ultimatums on a battlefield. “You will not act. You will do nothing unless you are told. If you do – if you move one step beyond my permission – you will know the wrath of a thousand storms bearing down upon you. Such is the price of my disappointment. Is that understood?”

This was hardly new. Playful banter. Hints of foreplay. Shoving Loki’s back up against the nearest wall. They had done all this before. But Thor’s manner was far different now: he was hard, stern, a flicker of lightning behind his eyes. A poise in his stance that promised to deliver on his threat. Loki had seen this before as well – had been on the receiving end of it many times in past lives – and what normally followed was a knife between Thor’s ribs where he left himself open by holding Loki down that way.

Thor waited for it, breath held, behind the hard face of his exterior his heart pounding – racing – as he searched desperately for any sign of genuine fear or displeasure in Loki’s eyes. It would have been easy enough for Loki to simply vanish if none of this suited him. Though Thor had initially considered the option, the collar held no magical properties. There were many ways available to bind the powers of those like Loki – to make it so he could not escape – but, for now, Thor thought it best to leave him that route. To allow him a way out if he so wished it.

Though he hoped and prayed desperately that he wouldn’t take it. It would be difficult to explain his actions to him later if they did not meet their end now.

“You know him best,” Natasha’s voice reminded him from memory. “Trust your gut.”

Thor waited, watching him, half expecting Loki to bite him or land a swift kick between his legs.

But the moment dragged on.

Nothing happened.

Loki was still there, looking up at him in what Thor believed to be a mix of fear and wonder. The dark of his eyes had grown wide – perhaps it was the dim lighting – and the tension in his posture gradually eased. Fell back to conform less rigidly to the wall’s support.

And then…Loki nodded. A simple gesture that shot heat and sparks directly to Thor’s center with the implication it carried.

He eased his hand from Loki’s mouth, and Loki licked his lips. Slow and considerate.

“I understand,” he rasped.

Thor nearly broke his façade with relief, and gratitude, and a sudden – fear? – that he would now have to carry on. It manifested as a brief sting at the corners of his eyes, across the top of his nose, that he blinked away. He pushed a smile to his face through the trembling nerves about his mouth.

“Good,” he breathed, exhaling. He had not realized he’d been holding his breath. “Good.”

He eased his hold on Loki, and Loki remained where he was, his hands dropped down against the wall at his sides. His gaze lingered, aimed up at Thor: wary, amused, and just a little defiant. It seemed all of Loki in a single look, and Thor could not resist another bend to kiss him again. He closed his eyes and fell against him and caught Loki’s hands when he felt them rising, pinning his wrists back against the wall at the level of his shoulders. His knee pushed in between Loki’s thighs to part them, rewarded with the sound of a muffled grunt as he ground against where Loki had already begun to swell.

Thor licked the taste of peach from deep inside his mouth. His head spun with a million thoughts.

“Loki may claim to be all about chaos,” Natasha’s voice came again, echoing a reminder, “but he’s also the type who likes to be in control. Of himself. Of events. Of his environment. He always has a plan. He’s always thinking, and that takes energy. To be suddenly not in control, to hand those reins over to someone else, might very well be a relief for him. He would finally be able to not have to think or plan. It would be a chance to rest.”

“You truly think that is what he wants?” Thor asked. “Or…needs?”

Natasha shrugged.

“Everyone needs a vacation.”

Thor broke the kiss, drawing back just enough to hear Loki breathe. He didn’t release him. Not yet. He kept his eyes closed and listened to the deeper, quicker draughts of breath Loki almost gasped. He felt the heat wafting from his skin and the beat of his heart pounding at his wrists. When he slid his eyes open, Loki was still there, looking at him levelly, with a welcoming challenge.

“Come to my bed,” said Thor, and Loki nodded.

He let him up from the wall, and they turned to walk there together.

It was a quiet walk, but a short one. The whole half of the Tower’s floor was a suite dedicated for Thor to live in when he was on Midgard. Stark thought it only proper hospitality, and Thor privately imagined he liked to challenge the concept of luxury as Thor knew it on Asgard, though there was really no need for Stark to try and impress him. It was private, and comfortable, and – more importantly – soundproof. Thor had Loki walk in front of him down the short hall from the main room, watching him as they went. Aware of his acquiescing quiet. The way he walked. The way he absently reached up to rub the back of his neck just as they reached the doorway.

Thor caught his hand, and put it back down at his side.

Loki smiled at him, as if amused, and humored him.

They stepped into the dark of the bedroom. Thor didn’t bother with the lights. One entire wall of the room faced along the outside edge of the tower. At this height, it offered a magnificent view of the city’s nightscape: points of all-colored light decorating black buildings, while rivers of orange and yellow flowed through the city streets. The windows could be dimmed to black or made clear as desired, but Thor left them for now, the ambient light providing just enough to see by.

The moment they were inside, Thor reached out, taking hold of Loki in both hands and pulling him back to his chest. His hands slid across Loki’s front, enveloping him in one warm embrace before they began to rove, feeling him liberally. Loki dropped his head to Thor’s shoulder and sighed, laying his arms across his so as to not obstruct his path. Thor tugged Loki’s shirt loose from where it was tucked into his pants and pushed one hand up beneath it, pressing his touch along his stomach and chest. The softer sides of Loki quivered as he brushed feather-light over them, and with his other hand undid the buttons one by one up to Loki’s collar.

“I want to give you something,” Thor whispered, nuzzling just behind Loki’s ear and along his neck. Loki tipped his head to one side like a cat inviting the scratch of more fingers, shivering as he hissed.

“Mmmn…I hope it’s your prick.”

Thor’s hand dropped to Loki’s crotch. He grabbed hold of him and squeezed uncomfortably hard. Enough to earn a stiffening yelp.

“You will not speak,” Thor said again, hot and breathy against Loki’s ear. “Not unless I invite you to. You will not say a single word. Understand?”

Loki grunted, grumbling and perhaps reconsidering the whole thing as he shifted his stance. But he bowed his head, muttering half-petulant beneath his breath: “Yes.”

“But you are allowed to make noise,” Thor went on, speaking slowly and with a sound of preconsidered rehearsal as he undressed Loki a little at a time. “Grunts. Groans. Sighs. Screams. Those you are allowed.” He pulled Loki’s shirt off over his shoulders. Down his arms. He dropped it off to one side, and ran the tip of one finger down his spine, stopping at the line of his pants. “And I will have you make all of them before we’re done tonight.”

Loki shivered, his hands closing tightly at his sides. But, as told, he didn’t respond.

Thor felt a blooming of his confidence as Loki actually did what he said. That had been his biggest doubt from the start: that Loki would go along with this at all, and if he did it would be with a patronizing humor or mocking sarcasm. But, with Natasha’s help, Thor decided the best tactic was to keep Loki quiet. To not let him speak. When Loki spoke was when things became confusing.

“What about this?” Thor had asked, indicating a series of images in one of the books of devices meant to go over one’s mouth to stifle any noise or speech.

Natasha tsked and she shook her head.

“Baby steps, Thor.”

Thor looked Loki over in the dim glow of the citylight. As their eyes adjusted, he could make out more of him, and even in the predominantly halogen tint he was pale and flawless: long and lean, with one line of him leading to the next without break. The collar was dark against his skin, and the pants that still clung to him hung low on his hips, allowing Thor to see a hint of the dips in the small of his back, inviting a touch to play across them.

“I want to give you something,” Thor said again, a quiet whisper as he held Loki to him, his touch only barely landing, as one hand drifted back to the front of his pants to undo their clasps. Thor bowed his head, speaking against the bone of Loki’s shoulder. “It may hurt, but it is something I wish to give you. I do not do so with the intent of harm or malice, but in service.”

Thor braced himself for the true test.

“Do you trust me?”

For a long moment, Loki was quiet. The decision to ask him for this one final consent with his face turned away was not one Thor had made idly. This Loki – Loki – was tightly clung to his emotions. Often when they lay together, he preferred to face away. He wanted that distance between them, even as they made love, and though Thor had some idea of why he had built such walls around him, it was those very walls he would strive to breach.

Because he loved him.

And he wanted his brother back.

Perhaps it was arrogant to think Loki might want the same thing, too.

“It’s all about trust,” Natasha had said, reiterating that point over and over. “At the core, that’s what it is. You have to trust someone to let them do these things. If Loki trusts anyone in the world, it’s you.”

Thor wanted Loki to trust him. He hoped Loki knew that he could.

“Fensalir,” Loki said, suddenly.

Thor blinked, the term from nowhere catching him off his guard.

“…what?”

“Fensalir.”

“Fensalir?”

Thor knew that word well enough. It was a place. Not of Earth, but of Vanaheim. A place where Frigga – their mother’s – family had originally dwelt before she came to Asgard to marry Odin. Frigga went back there often to retrieve water from its many springs and swamps. It was known for its healing capabilities.

He and Loki had played there often as children on those visits, when they accompanied her.

Loki turned to look at him, meeting his eyes with a level sobriety.

“I’m curious,” he said, tipping up his chin. “About what you have in mind. So do as you will. If I truly want you to stop at any point, I will say Fensalir.”

Understanding clicked behind Thor’s eyes. He had forgotten.

Natasha called them “safe words.”

“Right,” Thor breathed, and nodded. “I mean…yes. Good.”

He recovered from the falter by taking hold of Loki’s shoulders and kissing him, walking him back one step, then another, until the back of his thighs hit the bed. With a gentle shove he pushed Loki down onto the mattress. He bounced once before he settled, hands at his sides, looking up to Thor with a dark gleam in his eyes.

Thor maintained that eye contact as he removed his jacket. Undid the clasps on his shirt. Removed that too.

Loki watched him with an appreciative and mounting hunger in his gaze, biting the inside of his cheek.

When Thor was stripped to his waist he moved in again, kneeling between Loki’s legs over the side of the bed. Thor caught his chin, held him captured for a kiss, then leaned him backward onto the soft pile of blankets and sheets. Loki’s hands came up to touch his back, pressing and kneading over the flex and pull of muscle, dragging his nails lightly across Thor’s skin. Thor’s breath shuddered where it mingled with Loki’s in hot puffs between them, but he reached behind him. He caught Loki’s hand in his and reared up enough to catch the other, crossing them together above his head to pin back down against the mattress.

“No,” he whispered, drawing a line of breath along Loki’s neck. “Not tonight. Tonight is about you.”

Loki groaned, and squirmed as Thor held him there, bowing his head further to trail a breath down his chest, to just brush his lips over one pert nipple. He continued to hold Loki’s wrists trapped as his free hand roamed down his sides and belly, eventually finding its way to the front of his pants.

There he finished what he had started, undoing the clasps and slipping his hand beneath the fabric.

Loki gasped, arched at that first stroke against him. He turned his face away as if to hide against his arm as his eyes closed, his jaw slack with the breaths and moans that escaped him. Thor watched. Watched the way Loki’s brows drew taut together and his breathing quickened, became irregular, responding in time with his touch.

He was turning away again.

For now, Thor allowed it. He even encouraged it once finishing a path down Loki’s stomach to his naval, kissing and scraping his teeth across where he was soft, abandoning his strokes inside Loki’s pants to remove them instead.

“Turn over,” he rumbled.

Loki was panting. Flushed. He complied with a knowing glint in his eyes as he kicked off the rest of his pants and turned over onto his knees. Bending low, weight braced on his hands, he wiggled his presented backside in an inviting manner, casting Thor a half-lidded look of beckoning over his shoulder.

Thor ignored it. He rose over Loki instead, taking hold of his hands. He moved them to place on the round bar lining the headboard that formed the edge of the bed pushed up against the wall. The bar had always been there, whether or not it had been designed originally with this particular purpose in mind.

Thor closed his hands around Loki’s, linking their fingers, holding his hands in place for the moment it took him to whisper instructions into his ear:

“Do not move your hands from this spot.”

He let him go, tracing down his arms and shoulders, curling his fingers under him to feel along Loki’s stretched ribs and stomach. Finding the placement of his knees unsatisfactory, Thor took hold of his waist and pulled Loki back further, extending the balance of his weight that much more. It forced Loki to spread his knees to keep the strain from settling too much on his back, and drew the rest of him taut. His arms stretched out as far as they could reach and he dropped his head down between them, breathing through his mouth.

“Thor…?” he almost questioned, twisting to look at him as best he could.

“Shh.” Thor rubbed a slow circle on the small of his back, looking down at him, admiring his lean build. “Do not move your hands.”

Loki was quiet, but obedient. He turned his face away to look forward again – a more comfortable arrangement – and only dropped his head lower to gasp when Thor’s hand went to work on his backside.

Thor massaged the entrance at his rear, slow and thorough. He kept his attention on what he could see of Loki’s face and guided his way by feel, one hand spread on the small of his back to hold him in place while the other wandered. Spread two fingers to rub either side of his tight hole. Squeezed his sac with a gentle palming. Pressed his fingertips just inside him and over the more tender parts of his perineum.

Loki gasped, and groaned, half muffled into bedsheets when he let his weight drop and buried his face against the mattress. His hands remained where Thor had told them to stay, pulling at his back and shoulders. Several times Loki lifted his weight again with the leverage to press back against the heat of Thor’s hand, whimpering for more.

Thor didn’t give it to him. He continued on at his own slow, deliberate pace. Touching everything but Loki’s cock where it bobbed fully erect and flushed between his thighs.

“Thor,” Loki whined, dropping again this time in rest as Thor took his hands away entirely. Loki looked back at him as best he could over his shoulder, feeling the cold sweep in where Thor had been.

He shivered.

Thor’s hand appeared to touch his cheek. His palm moved in, conforming to the curve of Loki’s face, and urged him up. Loki pushed himself up on tired and quivering arms and raised his eyes to meet his brother’s, burning under the look they returned of a slow, analytical regard.

“I did not say you could say my name,” Thor rumbled, brushing Loki’s cheek with his thumb. He looked powerful, rising over Loki in the dark with no indecision or qualm in his stance. No misgiving in his tone. He leaned down as if to kiss him, but stopped short, speaking against his lips instead. “But the sound of it on your lips is so lovely…”

“Thor,” Loki strove to say again, his voice curling particularly wanton and needy, though Thor stopped him by pushing two fingers into his mouth.

“Suck,” he said.

Loki blinked, surprised, but did as he said. He closed his mouth around Thor’s fingers and slid his lips across them, pushing his tongue up between to flick and curl against their length in mimicry of another particular act he could be doing. He moaned as he mouthed them deep, taking them in nearly to the back of his throat, letting Thor feel the vibration of his voice. He looked up at Thor beneath the fall of his hair as if seeking approval, seeking encouragement, but Thor only looked back down at him. Detached and calculating.

Loki had no idea he could find Thor’s lack of coming apart so infuriating.

He should have been reduced to a mewling mess by now…

Instead, Thor only watched, kneading the back of Loki’s head with his fingers curled into his hair.

“Be sure to get them wet,” he rumbled, pushing his fingers back against the press of Loki’s tongue in a motion not unlike fucking. “They’re going inside you next.”

Loki grunted, the head of his cock throbbing with a sudden painful intensity, as Thor pulled his hand free. Loki felt the wet trail of saliva cling to his cheek before it broke, but couldn’t move his hands to wipe it away.

All thought of it bothering him promptly vanished under a tide of pleasure as Thor remained true to his word: returning attention to Loki’s backside and fingering him deep before the wet had a chance to dry.

Loki didn’t know how long that continued. He lost all track of time or care. His only notice that time passed at all was the feel of an increasing pressure between his legs, in his cock and through his loins. The tips of him throbbed. Heat flushed through his veins. He was fairly certain Thor was going to let him fuck himself to finish on his hand with how his hips pushed back against him when Thor suddenly drew away. The bed rose from its dip as the rest of him left it too.

Loki dropped, all of him limp and weak and shivering. He squinted his vision into focus over the pillow he rested on – his hands still clamped onto the bar overhead – and could just make out Thor’s outline moving to what looked like a chest against the wall on the far side of the room. Loki caught his breath, and watched, as Thor opened the lid and drew out something long from its contents.

As if he wasn’t annoyed enough, Thor had yet to even remove his trousers.

Thor turned whatever it was over in his hands – it was long, flat…it looked almost like a slat of wood – as he returned to the bed. He paused for a moment just at its side, raising his eyes to meet Loki’s again.

A flicker of pale lightning lit behind his gaze.

“There is something I’ve put off for too long,” came Thor’s voice, no sound or hint of playfulness in its growl.

Loki felt the coldness of fear strike him.

Thor knelt onto the bed. He pushed down Loki’s hips and raised his chin, moving him to sit up straight. Loki’s breath still came in deep gasps and he didn’t for the life of him know why he didn’t run. Every instinct should have been screaming for it. But he let Thor move him, coming to rest sitting on his heels with his head bent forward, still gripping the bar on the headboard.

“Do you feel even the slightest bit of guilt for what you’ve done?”

Thor’s voice came again. Low. Cutting. Like a snap of sudden wind. Loki’s eyes shot wide and for a moment he held his breath. He was certain his heart stopped. He felt his grip cease to barely-there contact against the bar while the rest of him sagged.

“…what?” he whispered, his eyes cast down, unable to see the first blow coming until it struck.

Sharp across his back. Not a blade. It stung but didn’t cut. The sound was a loud crack on his skin and left a moment’s numbness before the pain settled: a tingle like blood revitalized, rising to the surface. Loki was sure he cried out, but couldn’t hear it for the shock that gripped him.

Thor had…hit him?

“Don’t think of it as hurting.” Natasha’s voice again, soothing Thor’s fears. “Think of it as helping. It’s an outlet.”

“Aren’t there…other ways…of finding release?”

“Lots. But this one is tailored to a very particular kind of release.”

Thor kept his eyes largely turned down, uncertain of the entire thing.

“Loki is hurting, yeah?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “I…believe he is.”

“It’s guilt. He’s done some bad things. Now you’ve said you’ve forgiven him, but it’s not so easy to forgive himself. Even if you’ve told him so, there’s going to be that guilt lingering inside him.”

“How do I help? How can I make him believe I still love him?”

“Punish him.”

Thor had first looked at her in a sort of horror, but Natasha went on to explain.

“Physical pain – most of the time – is a lot more tolerable than emotional pain. You know that, right?”

“I…yes. I suppose so.”

“So…sometimes…a physical outlet for that internal pain is the best way to deal with it. It’s like having a good cry when you feel down.”

“So this solution you suggest is for me to…hurt him.”

“You’re the one Loki is closest to. You’re the one he wants forgiveness from. If you punish him, you’re giving him a way to process that guilt. You’re hurting him so he doesn’t have to feel it inside anymore. Then, when you stop, he’ll know it’s over. You’ve stopped because you wanted to, and you’ll still love him afterwards, even fully acknowledging what it is he’s done.”

Thor shook his head. It was all so much to consider.

“How could you possibly know all this?” He found himself asking her, over and over.

Every time, Natasha just smiled.

“Because I’ve been there.”

The device was indeed a long slat of wood. A ridged handle on one end served as a grip, and the wood was backed by a line of securing cord, keeping it from falling out as it had been designed with a good deal of give at its base.

“It’s probably the only thing you can swing at full strength and not break,” Natasha had said as she gave him the tour through her arsenal. “And it won’t kill him.”

Thor had tested it thoroughly before applying it to Loki that night. It served its purpose well. The flat part of the wood slapped against Loki’s skin with a firm, solid strike, while the give at its base allowed it to bend with the motion. Resistance would have only shattered it.

Thor paused for a moment to look at the long red mark left on Loki’s skin as a result. He froze, held himself still, listening to the resulting quiet. The only sound was the distant, muffled city carrying on outside and the shuddering intake of Loki’s breath.

“Answer me,” he said, regathering his strength.

Loki’s shoulders were shaking. He lifted his head, twisting to look back over his shoulder.

“W-what?” he stammered, still reeling.

Thor hit him again.

Loki didn’t cry out this time. He bit down on the urge, grinding his teeth together. Eyes clenched shut against the sting that welled against them. He heard the drag of his palms against the bar as he gripped the metal so tight it creaked, rotating them slowly back and forth.

“You heard me,” Thor growled. “All of it. The child you murdered. The friends you betrayed. The lives you nearly destroyed and dragged down with your fall. Do you not feel even the least bit sorry?”

“What are you—?” Loki tried to speak, cut off as Thor struck him again. He dropped forward, burying his face against his arm, sucking in a sharp breath as pain sprang fresh across his back.

Thor watched him, ignoring the parts of him that screamed against the wrongness.

“Thor!” Loki cried in response to another blow. Thor took his time between strikes, careful to not run them too closely together, lest they numb him entirely. There was plenty of time for the pain to set in.

“Thor…s…stop…”

Thor nearly did, hesitating. He drew his arm back to strike with the wood slat again. It lingered, wavering on indecision. The sound of Loki gasping for him to stop tugged at every instinct he had to shelter and protect him. Yet it was not the word Loki had mentioned before as being the true signal to bring things to an end. What if he had forgotten? What if the surprise and shock had scattered his wits? Thor had certainly forgotten the arrangement of a signal before they had begun, distracted as he was by nervousness.

He let his arm fall, almost with a numbness, the gesture automatic. The sharp slap of it against Loki’s skin rang in his ears, a sound just on the near side of unpleasant. Loki cried out again, his hands squeezing the bar where Thor had told him to grip.

He had not removed his hands. He had not vanished via magic.

Thor took a breath, and held it, trusting to Loki and to Natasha that this was indeed the right thing to do.

He struck Loki again and again, timing his blows. Aiming to land each one on a patch of skin that had not yet sprouted an angry red stripe. Loki yelped and cried out and squirmed as if to get away. He gasped and begged Thor to stop in half-broken sobs. But he never spoke the word he’d said before, and so Thor did not stop.

“All you’ve stepped on in your climb to power,” he growled instead, sweat and heat on his brow from the effort. “Do you not see them at night when you close your eyes? Do their voices not haunt you? The sound of their screams?”

Loki had dropped his head forward, leaning his brow to rest on the headboard between his hands. The jerks in his shoulders looked like weeping.

“…I…I do…” he finally rasped. A harsh and broken whisper. “I do see them…”

Thor struck again, laying the slat across his shoulder blades.

“And you know what you did was wrong?”

“…yes…I know it was…”

“What do you have to say?”

“I’m…I’m sorry… _I’m sorry!”_

Thor stopped. He supposed his arm should have been growing tired. His shoulder should have been sore. But he was well acquainted with the motion of swinging something with the intention of landing a blow, and even aside from that he was quite sure his stamina would have allowed him to continue all night. But Loki’s back was covered in red in the manner of one whipped, and in the quiet that settled, Thor realized he was crying.

But he was still there, and he lingered, enduring what it was Thor inflicted upon him.

And there it was.

The trust. The consent. The inherent sense of giving and taking that suddenly overwhelmed him upon its realization made Thor’s breath stumble. Sent heat all the way down to his groin.

Loki was letting him do this.

Thor set the slat aside. Weight bent onto his knees, he leaned forward, his shadow falling over Loki’s quivering body. As his hands touched him, he felt a jolt surge through his fingertips. It sent a pulse and throbbing through his heart, and by Loki’s cringe and gasp he could only imagine what the simple gesture must have felt like for him. A soft touch after such rough treatment. The barest brush of sensation against nerves brought to full, painful awareness. Loki shivered beneath his own sensitivity, the pain having become a steady background to his senses, almost transcendent in the way it blotted out all else. Once it ended, reality felt distant. Less sharp. Less intruding.

“Always strike taut flesh,” said Natasha. “Don’t hit anything that isn’t tense. That defeats the purpose. After that, only gentle touches. It’s possible to have too much of a good thing...”

Thor brushed his fingertips over Loki’s back, only barely touching him, following it with a breath. His hand found the collar still around his neck. He laid his hand over it, squeezing, forcing his head up, pressing on his arteries just enough to feel them pulse.

“You deserve this punishment,” he murmured, nuzzling close to Loki’s ear.

Loki’s face was wet with tears. He clenched his eyes shut tight, his mouth pressed into a hard line, but he didn’t try to pull away. The press of Thor’s hand around his neck was all-encompassing: the knowledge within it that Thor could do so, and not hurt him.

“I do,” Loki rasped, hitching a breath. “I know I do…”

“Give me your pain.” Thor closed his eyes. Pressed his nose and mouth to Loki’s cheek as he spoke, letting him feel his words as well as hear them. “I will be the one to take it from you. I will absolve you of all you have done. Me. Only me.”

Loki’s eyes fluttered open. They were swallowed in black, so much so Thor feared he had permanently robbed Loki of all his intelligence as he turned to look upon him. They struck him with their childlikeness, the open and naked bearing of himself that Thor had for so long been wanting to see.

“I’m not worthy of absolution,” he whispered, his voice trembling with the words.

Thor kissed him. Soft and deep, easing the hold on his neck in favor of cupping his chin.

“I will decide if you are worthy or not,” he said, drawing back to meet his gaze, his own full of such love he did not know how it did not spill from him in some material form. He saw Loki shiver, and followed the line of it down his body, spotting from where he was the evidence that what he had done to Loki’s back did nothing to dissuade the arousal between his legs.

If anything, it had become much worse: swollen and red and leaking against the blankets. It must have been aching.

Thor caressed him gently with his hand, lingering near his cheek to watch his reaction as he whispered.

“It’s alright. You can come now…”

Loki came with a painful cry, bowed forward and shaking under the intensity. Thor slipped one arm around him to hold him, to let him fall against him once he was spent, and also to turn him over onto his back once it had passed.

Loki came to rest with a panting breath, sweat on his brow making his hair cling in damp clumps, his eyes unfocused and looking up to Thor in a daze as he undid his trousers, freeing himself from its painful confines at last.

Loki’s hands were still on the bar, crossed over each other with his new positioning.

“Do not hide from me, brother,” Thor whispered, one hand planted on Loki’s chest as if to hold him there. To prevent him from escaping after all. In his other Thor took hold of himself and stroked where he knelt between Loki’s splayed thighs, all of him open and bared to him. “I want to see you…”

The look in Loki’s eyes was soft in the wake of his release. The whole of him had softened somehow, gone pliant, malleable to Thor’s hands as he leaned far over him. He made no effort to move or conceal any part of himself as Thor swept his gaze across him, seeing him as if revealed for the first time. No walls. No bravado. Only a look of gentle acceptance and appreciation and a desire to please as Thor moved himself closer, the tip of his erection too long denied brushing just against Loki’s lips. Loki parted them, slipped out his tongue, touching a kiss as gentle and tender as he would to Thor’s mouth to the tip of his head.

Thor didn’t last much longer, finding his end in the soft caress of Loki’s mouth and the dark flit of his lashes.

*****

Afterward, there was very little talking. Not for several hours.

Thor slid his hands beneath Loki’s cheeks to lift his head, tilting his face towards him, brushing back a fall of dark hair as he sought his eyes. Loki was limp. Quiet. His gaze downcast. A shivering deep in his bones each time he breathed.

Thor feared he had broken him.

“Loki? Loki, are you alright?”

Loki didn’t answer. He only breathed, slow and deep and deliberate. Thor stilled his panic by remembering Natasha’s words. She had said this might happen. That speaking might be difficult…after.

“Loki,” Thor breathed, his touch soft upon him and his voice gentle. “Nod your head if you’re alright.”

Loki nodded, once, then let his head drop to his chest. Thor could feel the trembling still deep inside him.

Thor leaned forward and kissed Loki’s brow, lingering there for several long heartbeats. He placed his hands over Loki’s wrists and unwrapped them from the bar on the headboard, easing them back down to lay across his chest. Then he gathered him up in his arms.

Thor lifted Loki from the bed and turned to carry him away. Loki curled towards him automatically, as if drawn to his warmth and presence, childlike in the way he made himself small and tucked his hands in close beneath his chin and closed his eyes. One deep breath, and he let it out in a full-bodied shudder, then seemed to rest easier.

Thor carried him to the washroom and ran a hot bath. They settled into it together, Thor washing Loki’s hair and body, quiet and attentive as he rubbed a salve onto his back. Already the red marks were fading.

Loki sat still and silent through the treatment, letting himself be moved, responding only to Thor’s touches. He did not look at Thor, but settled against his chest as they reclined together in the hot water, steam wafting around them.

Thor reached only once to the collar around his neck to undo the clasp and remove it. He stopped when Loki made a sound – a small whimper – and reached up to hook his finger through the metal ring at the front, holding onto it.

Thor let it be.

Afterwards, they returned to bed. Thor changed the sheets out for a freshly laundered set. The fabric felt clean and light against their skin as they came to rest face to face. Loki pulled himself in close, tugging absently on a lock of Thor’s hair between his fingers.

“That was…” Loki mumbled at last without energy. His voice trailed away, and Thor looked to him, eagerly prompting. Loki’s eyes darted up shyly, then hid again as he laughed a gentle breath.

“That was…I don’t know what to call it.”

“It’s alright,” said Thor, brushing his shoulder. “You don’t have to call it anything.”

“What possessed you?”

“It was…several things.” Thor lowered his eyes, sharing in his brother’s shyness. Though ‘shy’ had never been a trait he would have thought to apply to Loki. “Mostly, I could see your suffering. I wanted to help.” He flinched. “Did it? …help?”

Loki hummed a considerate sound, glancing away. His head pillowed on the bend of his arm, hair gathered around him in a black halo.

“Too soon to tell,” he said. Then he smiled. “But…I think it did.”

Thor felt the tension leave his shoulders. He breathed out in relief.

“It did something, at any rate.”

“I am glad.”

Loki’s hand left Thor’s hair. It slid down his chest, tapping over the swell of his heart.

“Then I am glad as well,” he said. “But we are never, ever going to do that again.”

Lines crossed Thor’s face as he frowned, his disappointment to hear such greater than he would have thought it should be.

“Why?”

“Because now that I have experienced, I have expectations.” Loki pushed himself up gingerly, wary of his back, as he rolled over to his other side to face away from Thor, settling down comfortably to sleep. “And I highly doubt it will be as effective a second time.”

“I could surprise you,” Thor said in mild protest. He scooted up closer behind Loki, laying one hand on his shoulder and nuzzling into his hair.

He heard Loki’s hum of piqued interest.

“Truly?”

Thor closed his eyes. He slid his arm around Loki’s waist, hugging him gently. Loki’s hand moved to rest along top of his, aligning their hold.

“I would welcome the challenge,” he murmured against the back of Loki’s neck.

Loki laughed, gently, and squeezed his hand. Their fingers moved to link together of their own accord.

“Well then. We shall see.” One last breath, and Thor felt him ease, a peace and restfulness in his body and in his manner that had not been there for some time. “Goodnight, Thor.”

“Goodnight, my Loki.”


End file.
